


When I Look at You

by spacegaysgettingspacelaid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Pidge Uses They/Them Pronouns, keith pines and actually does a decent job of hiding it for once, lance is a beacon of hope in a dark world, minor shallura also but not at all a lot, nonbinary pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8098528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegaysgettingspacelaid/pseuds/spacegaysgettingspacelaid
Summary: "When I look at you, I see planets and species and lives that we have yet to discover. I see hope in the sparkle in your eyes; I find peace in the sound of your breath; I feel the extra weight when you settle on the edge of my bed, and I fall toward the middle like I told myself I'd never fall for you."
☼☼☼
in which keith appreciates lance in his head, until, one night, he appreciates him out loud instead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a'ight first of all. this is my first klance fic. iM sO eXcItEd.
> 
> *cough*
> 
> Right. Anyways, I would suggest listening to "By the River" by SayWeCanFly while you read this. In case you can't look it up right now, here are some lyrics that stand out...
> 
> "Oh, this can't be just a dream  
> Everything makes sense when you're with me  
> I just want to keep you safe  
> You deserve that every day
> 
> There's an earth beneath our feet  
> And it smiles when you are walking with me  
> Beneath the moon that lifts you  
> Watch over me and keep me safe when I'm asleep  
> We were made to feel alone  
> Incomplete and on our own  
> But by the river in my soul  
> I swear to God I've found a home."

* * *

 

_**When I look at you, I see planets and species and lives that we have yet to discover.** _

 

* * *

 

"Coran!" Lance yells, standing up too quickly and knocking his chair over. "Where's that T'zennian vase I gave you for safekeeping?"

"Up in the control room, perhaps..? I don't recall where I laid it down after you gave it to me, sorry! We were in quite a hurry to get the castle out of there, you know," Coran replies, stroking his mustache as he thinks.

"Oh my god, Coran, I need that!" Lance groans. "It better not have broken, because I don't think the T'zennians are ever gonna let me back on their planet to get a replacement!"

"Got that right," Keith mumbles. Lance pretends not to hear him.

"Can someone help me look for it? I can't find it on my own," Lance whines, and Pidge stands up and leaves the room without a word. "Right, so, Pidge is out. Who wants to help me?"

"Sorry, buddy, I promised to help Pidge with… that thing they're doing," Hunk says, excusing himself from the table. Keith wonders if he only left because he knows what a terrible fit Lance will throw if the vase turns out to be lost or broken. Keith also wonders if Hunk realizes that he will be the first one Lance hunts down for comfort, regardless.

"Allura and I are studying the customs of T'zennia's sister planet, S'benna. We'll be there soon," Shiro says, but he continues eating his food goo rather than leaving the room. Allura shrugs.

"Perhaps the mice can help you," she suggests.

"They're quite intuitive!" Coran pipes in, and Lance squints at him.

"Why don't _you_ help me? You're the one who lost it," Lance huffs, crossing his arm.

"I'm… helping the princess! As the royal adviser, I was always expected to know everything there is to know about foreign customs!"

"I haven't got anything to do," Keith says, but he's lying. He had planned to train more, maybe get to level five with the training gladiator. But Lance's jaw drops when Keith opens his mouth to volunteer, and Keith thinks that might be worth losing a day of training over.

"Ah, there you go! Take Keith," Coran says, as if this is normal. Shiro raises an eyebrow at Keith before picking up his dirty bowl, standing up, and continuing his conversation with Allura.

"I-I mean- what? Pfft, I don't need _Keith's_ help!" Lance splutters, and Keith thinks Lance is being a little over-dramatic. More than that, Keith thinks he should be used to it by now. "I can find it on my own!"

"Shut up and let me help you," Keith says, rolling his eyes and standing up and pushing his chair in quietly afterwards. "The control room?" he asks for confirmation, and Coran nods.

"I really _don't_ need your help, you know," Lance says, his arms still crossed as they walk towards the control room. "I'll find it before you do, anyways!"

Keith bristles slightly. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he wonders why he bothers with their petty 'rivalry.' The thought flits away before it can do any good, and then Keith is snapping back something snarky about how Lance couldn't find a Galra battleship if it shot his lion's head off. Lance says something along the lines of "nuh-uh!" and then yells "Race you there!" in lieu of a proper comeback.

Lance has never been as fast as he wishes he was, and Keith beats him to the control room. "I'm pretty sure you cheated," Lance huffs, pouting slightly, and Keith rolls his eyes and hides his smile.

"So what does this vase thing look like?"

"Um, like a vase?" Lance replies, raising his eyebrows judgingly. "I dunno, it's kind of this ocean blue."

"Like your eyes," Keith says, wanting confirmation for the color so that he knows what he's looking for.

Lance splutters, and Keith figures he must have said something wrong. He just shrugs and starts peeking around the control room.

"Just- it's just blue, man," Lance finally says. "It's thin and- and a vase."

"Yeah, I kind of got that," Keith snarks. He glances to the left, and something gets his attention. "Hey, Lance, I think I found it," he says, walking over to the control panel and picking up a tall blue vase laying on its side next to one of the control panels.

"Hmm, what?" Lance asks, whistling slightly as he walks over to Keith and glances around the entire area. "You know, I'm not seeing it. We'd better keep looking."

Keith raises an eyebrow and slowly sets the vase back down on the floor.

"Holy crow, Keith, I found it!" Lance shouts gleefully, snatching up the vase and doing a little victory dance.

"What the quiznack," Keith deadpans.

"Hard to believe I'm better than you at something, right? Ha! I'm the _best_ finder!" The boy puffs his chest out and holds the vase out like a trophy, and Keith tries not to sigh too loudly.

"Whatever. Why'd you need it so badly, anyways?" he asks to get Lance to stop celebrating.

Lance's eyes sparkle mischievously. "Well, to cheer you up since you lost…" Keith opens his mouth to reply, but Lance keeps talking. "I'll show you! Follow me."

The run to Lance's room is a blur, mostly because Lance keeps going too fast and making them run into things, but also because Keith's brain can't help but short circuit when Lance grabs his wrist to pull him along. He wishes Lance would hold his hand. Lance doesn't.

"Ladies first," Lance purrs, opening his door and splaying out his hands to signal for Keith to enter. Keith rolls his eyes and crosses his arms as he crosses the threshold. He doesn't tell Lance that his room smells like he does, like the ocean-scented bath soaps and lotions that he made Allura buy him on a pitstop.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Keith asks, trying to look unamused. He eyes Lance's green jacket, which Lance has finally taken off in order for it to be washed, on the floor and wonders how it might fit him if he were to try it on.

"Patience is a virtue, _Keith,"_ Lance hisses as he strides past Keith to kneel down by the bed. The Blue Paladin pulls on a little indention on the side of the bed, and a drawer as wide and almost as deep as the bed itself comes rolling out. Keith didn't know the castle's beds had that, but he pretends he did as Lance glances up at him, smirking proudly. "Feast your eyes, pal."

The drawer is filled with trinkets, souvenirs from various planets, Keith supposes. There's an incredibly tiny Balmera crystal burrowed in the corner of the drawer, and a pointy stick from the Arusians lying next to it. Random Earth things, a marble, a paperclip, a few nickels Lance must have had in his jacket pocket for months before ditching the Garrison for a flying blue robot lion. There are things from other planets, too; a necklace, a roll of black-hole-black duct-tape (or at least the space equivalent), space gloves that would never fit Lance's hands and probably would only barely fit Pidge's if they'd ever even agree to wear them.

Finally, arranged carefully in the middle of the drawer, is a pair of flowers. One's petals are blue while the other's are red, but both are stunning even as they wilt.

"See, this is why I needed the vase!" Lance says, running to his bathroom. Keith hears water running and wonders if Lance is about to make a mess. Instead, Lance carefully walks back, balancing the vase like his life depends on it and letting out a squeak when a small bit of liquid sloshes out. "Okay, hand me that tape."

Keith doesn't question it, just rips off a long piece of void tape and hands it to Lance, who uses it to carefully attach the vase to his bedside table. It works surprisingly well, and then Lance grins and picks up the two flowers. "Wanna do half the honors?" he asks, holding out the blue flower to Keith, and Keith nods slowly and silently accepts.

Quietly, as though a single too-loud breath could shatter the vase and the flowers both, the two boys lower the stems of the flowers into the vase, allowing the heads to lean on either side.

Lance nods approvingly and shut the bed-drawer again, and then he stands up and holds out a hand for Keith to grab. Keith gets to his feet on his own, trying not to blush as Lance rolls his eyes.

"Well? Worth it, or what?" Lance asks cockily, and Keith can't find it in himself to lie.

"Yeah, worth it," he agrees. "How long have you been..?"

"Since we started, obviously," Lance scoffs. "I'm collecting souvenirs! If we're gonna be out here for as long as Shiro thinks… Well, I might as well get some things to bring back when we finally go home. And bite me if I'm not gonna get a souvenir from every dang planet we visit!"

"… That's a lot of souvenirs, Lance."

Lance shrugs. "When I get home, I'll have been gone for a long time. I want my family to know I was doing something that was almost… almost worth it."

Keith looks at the flowers on Lance's nightstand and thinks that, if he were Lance's family, anything that got Lance home alive would be 'worth it.'

He pictures Lance, safe, at home, on Earth, with his family. In his head, Lance's little sister is wearing the teeny tiny space gloves.

Keith thinks they look nice on her.

 

* * *

 

_**I see hope in the sparkle in your eyes.** _

 

* * *

 

Lance has been in the medpod for at least seven Earth days. Hunk and Pidge and Allura and Coran are in the back of the room, reenacting the clock party they were having when Lance fell out of the healing pod the first time. Hunk says it's good luck.

Keith says it's desperate.

Shiro left. Said if Lance hasn't gotten out by now, then maybe he just needs another day. Maybe Coran's calculations were wrong. Waiting around and moping isn't going to help.

Keith hates Shiro for being so optimistic. For all they know, Lance might never wake up. Isn't there anything they can do?

Coran says there isn't.

Keith wouldn't be so worried (yes, he would) if only Lance had entered the medpod on different circumstances. Keith remembers the whole battle very clearly, because he's been playing it back to himself over and over since Lance got hurt, and he knows with stinging certainty that Lance's condition is _Keith's fault._ Keith went in for the kill, had Red diving down into the fray and leaving claw marks across the back of one of the main Galra ships, but Lance had seen the front windows of the ship, had noticed how he couldn’t see in, could only see something black and oddly shaped, and had known, in the back of his mind, that the ship was not a normal warship and was, instead, a plant.

The ship blew up. The explosion was huge. Shiro was knocked unconscious. Pidge got a nasty concussion. Hunk had bruises like paint on his dark skin, and Keith had barely been able to stumble out of his lion when it crash-landed on a nearby planet. They were lucky they all crashed in the same place, lucky Lance had rammed Keith's lion in the same direction that the others were already flying.

Keith was the one who found Lance's lion. Pidge was barely awake, but they were still muttering things into the comm, instructing on how to check the blue lion for serious problems, like ones that could cause another explosion. Hunk was babbling in the background, quiet because Keith had turned the volume down but not all the way, because Hunk's voice was warm and calming even when it was high and panicked. Allura and Coran were in his ear, too, but he could admit to ignoring them all a little when the Blue lion opened up for him weakly.

Keith had run inside, darted toward the cockpit, gone silent for a moment as his body betrayed him.

He couldn't move. All he could do was stay rooted in place as his eyes flicked across the mess that was Lance. He was bloodied, everywhere, anywhere. Bruises all over, worse even than hunk, with cuts interspersed and explained by the jagged metal jutting out from the wall of the lion. The whole ship was really banged up.

Lance was not breathing.

Lance _was_ breathing, actually. But Keith was panicked, and couldn't feel a pulse, and Lance's breaths were so shallow that Keith had had no chance of feeling or seeing them. But he picked up Lance anyway, abandoned Red and begged Blue to let him pilot her as best as he could under the circumstances. She stuttered and groaned but she made it to the castle, and Keith went back for Red and the others later, after Lance was in a medpod and decidedly not dead.

After the castle had landed on the planet, as was the original plan before Lance's condition was made known, everyone else was shoved into the pods, too. Keith got out first, which did nothing but increase his guilt. Coran told him to go easy on the training gladiator. He did not.

Hunk emerged second. He wanted food. He wanted Lance.

Next: Pidge. They were tired and they wanted to know why the quiznack they didn't get another day in the pod. Later, they wanted to know why Lance's vitals still weren't steady.

And, finally, Shiro. He exited the pod with all of his usual grace, not even needing Keith's shoulder to lean on. He hugged each and every one of them in turn, and then he walked over to Lance's pod all on his own.

"How long was I in there?" Shiro had asked.

"Four days," Keith had replied.

"Lance's vitals…"

"The machine is perfectly accurate," Pidge had interrupted. They wrinkled their nose. "I already checked."

Present time. Keith thanked the stars that Lance's vitals were finally back to normal.

"I-I think we're winning," Hunk stutters, on the verge of tears as he tries to force his lines.

"I think ticks are slower," says Allura, who believes this to be a healing Earth ritual.

"No, no, you already said that," Pidge huffs, nearly dropping the device.

"Please wake up," Keith whispers against the glass of the medpod, because he doesn't know how the team can survive without its Blue Paladin.

There's a whoosh of air. Keith thinks it might be his imagination.

"Is the floor spinning, or am I?" asks Lance, and Keith jumps up and catches him before he falls.

Cries of "Lance!" sound from all across the room, and from all across the castle, too, when the celebration goes through the comms and gets Shiro's attention. Hunk hugs the Latino so hard that he might have to go back into the medpod, and Pidge sniffs and pretends they don't care. Lance knows that they do.

Allura, following the "Earth ritual," tells Lance to eat some food and tell them all about everything. She's very confused when Lance doesn't make the same joke as he did the first time. Regardless, she hugs her paladin tightly.

Shiro hugs him, too, gentler than Hunk but firmer than Allura (who everyone knows could have crushed Lance's ribs far better than Hunk, had she wanted to), and Lance sniffles into his shoulder.

Keith holds onto Lance's arm the whole time.

"I thought you died," Keith says once everyone else has left to the dining room, and his voice breaks in the way that it does when he's feeling just a little too desperate.

"Pssh, and leave you guys to defeat Zarkon on your own?" Lance's eyes shine. "I wouldn't dare."

 

* * *

 

_**I find peace in the sound of your breaths.** _

 

* * *

 

The castle is quiet. Not a creature is stirring (not even a mouse).

Hunk is snoring softly, a calm and steady noise that helped, rather than hindered, the others' sleep. Pidge has fallen asleep with their newest project still on their lap; when they wake up, they will be grateful for Lance's pillow nest, which caught their invention before it could shatter against the floor.

Shiro and Allura are sleeping intertwined on their own pallet of blankets, and, in the morning, neither will be entirely sure whether the position was platonic or romantic (nor will they know for certain which answer they would prefer). Coran fell asleep keeping watch over the princess, though one might question whether he even realized he was doing it. The mice are curled around his feet.

Lance is fast asleep in his pillow nest, curled into a tiny ball with his knees hugged to his chest. His eyes flicker, like maybe he dreams almost as much as he talks, and sometimes he murmurs unintelligible phrases into his pillow. Keith is beside him.

Keith is awake.

He can't sleep. He can't close his eyes. He is afraid that if he does either of these things, this new feeling will disappear.

Last night, Lance insisted they have a sleepover in what was, early-on, deemed the living room. All seven of them camped out there, with hardly an objection from anyone at all. There were movies. And games. And polite chats, and deep conversations. And tickle fights, and pillow wars, and temporary truces made of gooey shakes resembling chocolate ice cream and Altean hymns resembling a child's lullaby.

Most of all- More than anything- In overwhelming amounts, not to be ignored, never to be ignored-

There was family.

And Keith was a part of it. Lance taught him how to braid Pidge's hair, even though the process might have elicited a few growls from one Green Paladin. Hunk laid on his back on the couch and wondered about the deepest, most haunted corners of the universe, about what resided there and why, and Pidge taught Keith the definition of an "existential crisis." When Pidge's Earth-set clock beeped three in the morning, and Coran was already asleep and the princess was drifting as well, Shiro stood up and told everyone that it was time to sleep, and at first they protested but then he went and tucked them all in, one by one, even going so far as to plant a sarcastic kiss on Pidge's forehead. That got tired, contented laughs out of everyone, and Keith held tight to the feeling of belonging.

He doesn't want to lose it.

"Nngh," moans Lance, and when Keith focuses in on the Blue Paladin's face, it's clear the boy is having a nightmare. His eyebrows are furrowed, eyes shut tight as though opening them and waking up would end everything, and not just the dream. Lance's mouth is closed in a tight, thin line, and Keith doesn't know how to stop it.

Hesitantly, after a good moment of staring blankly at Lance's still face, he reaches out a hand and rests it against Lance's head.

Lance doesn't stir.

Keith decides to take that as semi-permission. So, gently, as gently as he can so as not to wake the other boy, Keith cards his fingers through Lance's hair, relishing in the softness.

Lance seems to calm down, if only a little. He scoots closer to Keith in his sleep.

Oddly enough, and despite the beating of his heart and the roaring in his ears, Keith cannot bring himself to mind. His hand slowly moves away from Lance's hair until, eventually, Keith's arm is simply resting across the other boy's side, holding him close.

The Red Paladin takes in a shaky breath and scoots in closer still, and, now that Lance has relaxed a bit and started breathing through his mouth (which Keith tries very hard to view as anything but adorable), Keith can feel Lance's breath on his cheeks.

"Family," Keith says quietly.

He closes his eyes, and the feeling of Lance's breath on his skin keeps him grounded.

 

* * *

 

_**I feel the extra weight when you settle on the edge of my bed, and I fall toward the middle like I told myself I'd never fall for you.** _

 

* * *

 

"Move along, Mullet-Man," Lance snarks, sticking his nose up into the air haughtily.

Keith ignores the slight pang of hurt in his chest; this is just Lance. Lance does this sometimes. Keith probably did something to piss him off, but he'll get over it later.

"I _said,_ 'Move along,'" Lance huffs, putting his hands on his hips as he turns to follow Keith.

"You're literally following me around the kitchen," Keith replies, putting his bowl under the food goo hose.

"Yeah, 'cause I want you to leave, idiot!"

"It's the kitchen, Lance. It's a public place."

Lance narrows his eyes. " _You're_ a public place."

"Not quite," says Keith as he huffs out a breathy laugh.

The Blue Paladin makes an odd squeaking sound that attracts the Red Paladin's attention. "You okay, there?" Keith asks, trying not to snort at how red Lance's neck and ears are.

"Fine," Lance says, and he runs out of the room.

Keith never finds out why Lance was mad at him.

A few hours later, all five paladins are gathered on the training deck, and Coran is calling out "Level nine!" and scaring the pants off certain people. Keith grips his bayard and takes pleasure in watching it transform into his usual red sword, and Lance fumbles with his own bayard before finally producing his typical blue gun. Keith smirks and looks away from Lance, expertly spinning his sword in his hand. He can feel Lance gaping at him from across the training deck as he tries to replicate the action with his gun.

The gladiator drops down and goes straight for Shiro, who very nearly slices its head off in one go. Unfortunately, it dodges and gets in a hit that has Shiro on his knees. Pidge and Hunk are on the bot next, which is maybe not the best idea considering Hunk is still getting used to aiming his weapon and Pidge's weapon is distinctly melee. When Pidge nearly gets shot and then gets thrown across the room in their distraction, Keith waves at Hunk to hold off for a moment as he runs at the bot. Soon Keith is pinning the training gladiator, and then Shiro is appearing out of basically nowhere to finish it off.

Coran calls that a successful go, and the rest of the team turns to face Lance.

"Care to join in next time?" Shiro asks, voice firm and planted deep into the dad tone.

"I- Keith distracted me!" Lance complains, pointing at the Red Paladin. Keith notices his friend blushing a little.

"You're just jealous because you can't best me," Keith replies, smirking proudly.

Lance's jaw drops. "Ex-cuh- _huse_ me?" Lance asks, very clearly on the verge of z-snapping as he places his free hand on his hip. "In your _dreams,_ mullet man."

"In our reality, actually."

"Oh, _please!_ You'll never be as good at me at training! You just caught me on an off day!"

"Is _every_ day an off day for you?"

"Wha- _No!_ I'm just- Just homesick," Lance says, and Keith can't tell if it's an excuse or not.

"So, same problem as every day," says Keith as he rolls his eyes.

When Lance's face tightens up, it occurs to Keith that he may have just said the wrong thing.

"At least I _have_ a family," Lance mutters, crossing his arms and looking down, and it's Keith's turn to freeze in place.

Shiro pales. _"Lance,"_ he hisses, and Lance's head whips up as though he's just now realized what he's said.

"No, it's fine," Keith says, more calmly than he expected. "He's right. So what?" He de-transforms his bayard and pick his jacket up off the floor. "I don't _need_ a family. You know, I think I'll go practice on my own."

Lance winces, but he doesn't make a move to stop him.

Keith walks to his bedroom alone.

And he stays alone until late that night, when everyone else has gone to sleep due to the fact that Keith has done a suitable job of keeping them out of his bedroom. The one person who hasn't tried to get in and talk to him is Lance, which is to be expected - at least, that's what Keith tells himself. He tries not to think about Lance, because whenever he does it feels like someone has stabbed an actual lance through his heart and it hurts in more ways than Keith thought was possible.

If the Earth-clock Pidge gave him is anything to go by, it's about midnight when there's suddenly a knock on his door. Keith slams a pillow over his head and hopes the person will go away on their own, but then a tinny, fake voice calls out "Room service!" and Keith is opening the door before he can even comprehend why.

"Oh! Ha, I, uh, I didn't think you'd actually let me in," Lance laughs nervously, dropping the maid voice and rubbing his hand across the back of his neck.

"I didn't let you in, I opened the door," Keith deadpans. "There's a difference."

"Oh, right," Lance says awkwardly. He stands there for a moment. "Well- _Can_ I come in?"

"No," Keith says, shutting the door.

Lance lets out a clearly offended "hey!" and starts banging on the door with both fists, and Keith wonders how the others haven't woken up yet. Finally, out of guilt for possibly robbing Shiro of some proper sleep, Keith opens the door again and almost gets accidentally punched in the face because of it.

"Go. Away," Keith says through clenched teeth.

"No way! Just- Come on, Keith, just let me in. Please?" Lance begs, clasping his hands together and sticking out his bottom lip as far as it'll go, and Keith narrows his eyes at him.

For a while, they just have a staring contest. Lance swears in spanish when he blinks.

"Quiznack," Keith mutters, sighing as he turns around and walks back to his bed. Lance does a silent cheer before racing after him, and when the Latino boy plops down heavily on the corner of the bed, Keith finds himself slowly sinking to the area Lance is holding down. "Okay. What do you want."

Lance is positively beaming, which is interesting since Keith is still in the mood to stab something. "Look, Keith, I-" His expression turns more serious, almost grave, as he continues. "I wanted to say that I'm really, _really_ sorry, okay? What I said was incredibly stupid and totally uncalled for, and-" He shakes his head. "That was just very not cool of me."

Keith is silent. He doesn't make eye contact.

"Come on, Keith, please," Lance pleads, looking down at Keith imploringly.

Keith pretends not to notice.

Lance lets out a frustrated huff. "Keith. Say something. Are… Are we cool?"

"Yeah," Keith says quietly after a long bout of silence. "It's fine, you… you were right, anyways." He puts on a weak smile. He figures it should do since he usually doesn't smile much at all.

Unluckily for and unbeknownst to Keith, Lance has been paying a lot of attention to Keith's smiles lately. "No, I wasn't," Lance argues, furrowing his eyebrows in determination.

Keith tilts his head a little, and he's willing to admit that, whatever the joke is - he doesn't get it.

Lance smiles and then jumps, startling Keith and then startling him even more when he lands back on the bed, causing Keith to fall forward into Lance's arms. "You _do_ have a family," Lance says firmly, and Keith doesn't dare think what might happen if someone were to disagree with him. _"Us."_

At first, Keith doesn't get it.

"I'm sorry- what?" he asks, and Lance sighs and rolls his eyes.

"We're family, Keith. All of us. Shiro, and Hunk, and Pidge, and Allura, and Coran, and you, and me! We're _family."_

Keith lets Lance hugs him as he cries.

 

* * *

 

_**I- I-** _

 

* * *

 

Shiro and Allura are on a different ship entirely. Keith can hear their voices crackling in panic over the comms.

Coran is trying his best to get the castle ship's particle barrier back up before the Galra track his location.

Pidge and Hunk were on camera duty, making sure no one noticed when the team crept onboard the ships. Keith knows from the yelling in his ear and the Galra blade against his neck that something went wrong.

Lance is breathing heavily, eyes tired and red, cheeks smudged with blood and the dust of the ship's ventilation system. "L-Let him go," Lance demands, and he stares at Keith like he's begging him with his eyes to figure out a way out of this.

But Keith is smart enough to know that if he moves a single muscle, he'll be dead in a second. So, with an eerie calm about him, he resorts to plan B.

"When I look at you," Keith says slowly, taking a deep breath, "I see planets and species and lives that we have yet to discover." The Galra soldier presses the blade closer to his throat. Keith tries hard to ignore it as he forces eye contact with Lance. "I see hope in the sparkle in your eyes," Keith continues, and he thinks the current sparkle in Lance's eye might be a tear.

"Please don't," Lance cries softly, but Keith has been planning this for a while now. He just didn't think the plan would go into action in this sort of situation.

"I find peace in the sound of your breaths," he says, wincing when the blade burns his neck slightly. He doesn't stop. "I feel the extra weight when you sit on the edge of my bed, and I-" With shaking hands, Lance is aiming the gun at the Galra soldier, and the soldier is tightening his hold on Keith, pressing the blade farther still but still not enough to lose his advantage. Keith is afraid to swallow, so he doesn't. "And I fall towards the middle like I told myself I'd never fall for you," he finishes, and he wishes he had had time to write more. Lance deserves only the best, Keith thinks.

"Don't you dare," Lance hisses, and there are tears leaving tracks down his bloodied cheeks.

"I- I-" Keith clenches and unclenches his fist, careful not to anger the Galra soldier holding him captive. "Lance, I- I really like you, and- and if we had had more time, I think I would have grown to love you, too." Lance shakes his head frantically, and Keith tries to smirk. "If we're being honest, I think I'm already half-way there."

"Let him go, or I'll shoot you," Lance growls.

"Triumph or death," the soldier replies.

"Hey. Live a good life for me, okay?" Keith begs quietly, and his eyes meet Lance's again.

Lance sniffs a little, and then he steadies his gun in his hands.

A shot goes off. For a split second, Keith is worried Lance is dead. When Lance is not dead, Keith spends another split second wondering if _he_ is dead.

Another shot goes off. The blade is _long_ gone. Keith looks down to see the fallen Galra soldier; one bullet through his head, and the other through his hand.

Lance kisses him, hard and fast and unforgettably desperate, and Keith hates that he doesn’t even have time to respond before Lance is pulling away.

"What?" Keith asks, a little confused.

"My life is already looking a little too much like a bad anime. It's not gonna turn out to be an angsty shounen-ai, too."

"I… What?"

"I like you, too," Lance clarifies, and he leans in to kiss Keith again, longer, harder.

But then Coran's voice comes in through the comms shouting, "Yes! I've got it! I'm coming in to pick you five up, head to an exit and I'll try my best to get to you!" and Shiro is yelling "I got the data, Pidge!" and Hunk is screaming "Hallelujah, we're saved!"

Keith looks up and sees hope in Lance's eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> the end <3
> 
> also, if you would like to check out my youtube channel (hghrules), i've recently posted a lyric video for a fansong i wrote called "the paladins."


End file.
